A Slice of Spain

The fearless four were down by one last weekend... Gwen's mum and aunt spent the week in London giving her some much needed family time-- which continued into the weekend. Sam, Nat and I temporarily became the 3 Musketeers as we set sail to España!  Usually I'm the go-along-with-everything-type and let someone else be the group leader/major decision maker, but one way or another I was elected 'finder of the hostel'. If I do say so myself, we had an awesome hostel! Our room slept 6 (back to the bunk beds) we had free WiFi access with six computers, a kitchen, showers, bathrooms, beer fridge, and comfy couches in the commons area. There were tons of young people staying there (a few actually living there) and really friendly staff.

My favorite part of Madrid was simply meeting fellow travelers. I find it so interesting to see what others are doing with their lives and how they ended up in whichever country we happen to be visiting. We saw signs posted all around the hostel announcing a night out at the bars starting in the lounge downstairs. We decided it would be fun, and jumped right in. We met lots of 20-something year old's who are also studying abroad in various European countries. We met a really funny military couple from Florida who now live in the UK, a solo backpacker from Jersey, a guy from Boise of all places, a quirky couple from England and Peru, more Americans, a Canadian who spoke perfect French, a Brazilian, and plenty more I couldn't keep track of. Free beer kept reappearing on the coffee tables as we sat their and got to know everyone... no complaining here! 

Once midnight hit we made our way to the bars. It's true what they say, Madrid never sleeps! I was amazed by how many people were out and about at every hour, including 4 a.m. We all agreed the two most important Spanish terms to know are: cerveza and el baño

Our first day in Madrid we took our time walking around and enjoying the sunshine, it was VERY bright out! We came across a small pond/lake hybrid of some sort... equip with rent-able row boats. These ones looked much safer than the punting boats we tried in Cambridge, so we decided to hit the water!   

I told you it was BRIGHT out! 

I particularly enjoyed the Spanish style buildings and the very low key lifestyle of Madrid. It was very lively at all times but never too much. 

We found a tree full of initials carved into it-- and decided to leave our mark

K+S+N
USA
(seemed appropriate) 

Our first night in the hostel, we had the room to ourselves leaving 3 empty beds. The second night we had a full house... I was unaware of this until the following morning. Just a tidge bit awkward since we had two men and one woman sleeping/snoring only a few feet away from us (not to mention they were of Asian decent). I'm very proud of us for giving the shared room hostel situation a go, not bad at all!

 We met lots of interesting people, experienced Madrid's lively day life and exciting night life, and most importantly gave ourselves a break from finals week. The past two days have been ridiculously studious and painfully productive. It's our last actual week of class-- followed by presentation week, one final weekend in London, a trip to Africa then our journey back to the states... I'm loving this busy/exciting/learning lifestyle!